Before The Devil Knows You're Dead
by MillaRose
Summary: In a game of Russian roulette, two women must look back on the events leading them down this deadly path. Time is fleeting and in a battle of will's it is all about who will bend first. Victoria or Emily…Emily or Victoria? Who will show some remorse before the night is up and the devil knows one of them is dead?
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

Who had crossed the line first? That was the great question. Depending on whom you ask, the story differs. Some would say Victoria Grayson did first, others, Emily Throne. But it didn't matter now, not the tears, the blood, the sweat, or prayers. Emily had been to a place so dark that she no longer believed in anything but revenge.

They stared at one another from across the length of Conrad's study desk. It had come down to this but even in these last moments Victoria still managed to maintain the persona of a cold-hearted bitch.

Smirking at Emily, her eyes were full of only evil hatred, "Your father left you to die."

"All talk, aren't you Victoria?" Emily tried her best to ignore Victoria. She had a few remarks of her own to share, "Well now you better learn to fight or your death is going come real soon."

Lowering her gun onto the table, Emily saw a look of relief wash over Victoria. It read of an easy escape, like the cards were falling into her hands. But nothing about this was going to be easy. Emily was going to make sure of that.

"God wants no harm to come to me," Victoria said with more delusional conviction than necessary. Her eyes darted around the room looking for an escape route.

Emily slowly lowered the gun "God cares nothing for you," she whispered a smirk of her own now forming, "the only thing that matters now is that I'm here and He's not. We're going to play a game, Victoria."

"I don't want to play any games—"

"—Oh you think it's an option, do you? Let me tell you now that nobody gets to choose when they want to die."

"Aiden did," Victoria was calculated, "That's what this all about, right? Will let me tell you that he got to choose every part of the way he died the moment he decided aligning with you. I didn't kill him. You did. Just being around you put him in danger. But Aiden knew the risk and he took it."

Visions of Aiden began to flash before Emily's eyes. The memories were too painful of the happier times that no longer exist. Once the chance is gone she knew you could never get it back. It was too much and she exploded in anguish and fury, "You took him from me! You stole from us, the precious life we could have spent to together in peace. You stole our time!"

"Oh yes…_time_. If there is one thing you don't have to lecture me about Emily, it is time; I've lived enough to know what it is truly all about. They say that it is the worlds one real commodity, the source of all others. You can change it into something else, but you can never change it back to what it once was…and when it's all used up…"

Emily knew Victoria was talking about the mistakes she regretted making with her father David Clarke. Was it remorse? If it was then it was too little, too late.

"What would you like to do with the_ time_ you've got left?" Emily spat, "Try and appeal to my human side? Let me tell you a secret, Victoria, the human part of me left the moment you put your hands around Aiden's neck! But it was drifting much more before hand when you let my father rot away in jail for crimes he did not commit. I had no one! I was only a child and you took everything from me. Try as I might to take everything from you, nothing ever seems to work. You're like a roach… you always find a way to survive."

"The life I've had, I've had no other choice but to survive! I was treated by garbage by the mother who was supposed to love her child, raped by my own stepfather. I was thrown away to a pack of nuns and force to give up my baby! All my life I have been fighting and surviving. I've lived it so long I don't know anything else. So if you want to kill me you better just do it now because the clock is ticking and once it's all used up…"

"Oh you'll kill me?" Emily laughed hysterically for a moment before staring Victoria down coolly, "I'm willing to take that chance. We're playing Russian roulette after all. I've got a 3" chamber and one bullet, " slowly she slide the gun across the table, "game over, Victoria."

They both knew that neither could live while the other was alive. The world was now much too big for the pain they both bore. Maybe that's why Victoria was so willing. Slowly Emily watched as her nemesis raised the gun to her own temple. Emily pulled out another gun just incase their were any last minute changes of heart. She was surprisingly calm and peaceful watching Victoria's trembling hands and an old saying rang through her head…

Who had crossed the line first? That was the great question. Depending on whom you ask, the story differs. Some would say Victoria Grayson did first, others, Emily Throne. But it didn't matter now, not the tears, the blood, the sweat, or prayers. All Emily hoped for her enemy was that Victoria be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows she's dead.


	2. October 17, 2014-Night

**October 17, 2014-Night**

Her eyes were only focused on the red roses in front of her. The only thought in her head right then, was wondering who might have put them there. It was a trivial matter, something to distract from the constant head games. She wanted to feel something, anything, something physical, something painful. To scream would be a blessing, because this all had to be a dream…that tombstone staring back at her etched with his name.

Screaming is bad.

Little whispers and threats work much better at quelling her mind; they snap her out of it into other worlds and imaginings. His deep eyes flicker in front of her again and then suddenly whole images. She walks into that bar on the night they first met. She can feel the tremors all around them, like the vibrations in a note of music that only they two can hear. She can't seem to help herself, not once had she ever exchanged one word with this man she saw always serving drinks behind the bar. But as if bound on a string by his eyes, Emily constantly followed his every move. _His every move_. If she could take a picture…

"_You can't take a picture," he whispers having vanished from behind the bar, now appearing out of nowhere from behind her. _

_How did he do that?_

"_What?" she dares herself not to make eye contact, but already she is noticing things. Like that t-shirt he is wearing and the smell of his cologne. His shoulders were very broad, those hands inching closer and closer…She repeats because she is so intoxicated by him, "What?"_

"_You can't take a picture. The moments already gone."_

_Which was to say that he knew her thoughts. Already, he knew that she wanted to capture something all those times she spent looking at him. Taking a picture would be useless though, it couldn't capture anything she was feeling right now. Moments are special, they can't be captured by lenses, they are composed of so many other things that make them what they are. And how could he know something like this, unless he too had suffered something so profoundly tragic? Something that taught him he just had to move on from photographs and make the best of the things we have left?_

_She tired not to act too impressed with him. Takeda had trained her to be an emotionless cold fish in pursuit of revenge. She shouldn't have come here. She should leave. But he's offering her a drink now. His eyes told her clearly that he did not want to leave her. His hand, she felt the clasps of it, the tension of it, leading her past the others into a world of their own. That T-shirt fit him so well. That cologne over powered her senses…_

Screaming is bad. Dreaming is even worse.

And that's what Emily wakes up doing, screaming so loudly she could cough up her own lungs.

Nolan seems to know the drill. He knows she's had that dream again; the one where she stands immobile forced to look at Aiden's tombstone, remembering how they met, before swiftly sinking into his grave giving out under her feet.

Nolan is a good friend to her. He knows the routine;offering her water and petting her hand. He does the song and dance so well it is impressive how he has not yet cracked under pressure. But tonight he does something different, maybe just because he is tired of these ghost like trances of existence.

"Do you think…if you're comfortable that is—maybe you could tell me about him sometime?"

Maybe he was just trying to help. After all Nolan was one to express his emotions rather than bottle everything up. But questions like these had feelings attached to them that changed minute by minute. Emily had no way to convey what the word 'comfortable' actually meant. Comfortable? Wasn't that just another way of gently saying 'impossible' or 'safe' ? Because it was impossible to actually talk about Aiden and any venture she made trying to delve into the subject would only ever be in the form of safe topics.

She looked at Nolan and yet all she saw was Aiden…Aiden standing there, staring at her with all those looks, leading her away and breathing her in like one would breathe the air…

How could she tell Nolan about him…sometime. Ever. She lives in an echo chamber where the memories of yesterday swell up into thunderstorms of thoughts. She sits alone at night in her bedroom sifting through clues. She finds them everywhere. From the toothbrush still sitting in the bathroom, to pictures on the wall; sometimes things catch her off guard and she find things she wasn't suppose to, thinking…

"_I killed of memory of that t-shirt…the smell of your cologne."_

And yet these things still come out to taunt her, these corpses of memory shrieking at her as they rise from the dead.

Sometimes she sees a photograph of him from when he was younger, with his sister Colleen. It fills her mouth with a bitter ashy taste of regret.

There was a time when she thought it was easy to be comfortable with her decision not have kids and get married. It was still her decision then, but then there was that weird moment when it truly hit that Aiden was dead and she realized it wasn't her call anymore. In that moment she wasn't confronted with having to make a decision, but instead confronted with the knowledge that she already made one and that is a whole different deal.

"Tell you about him?" Emily looked at Nolan blankly.

"Yes…only if you want?"

"He thought he was a fool."

"What?" Nolan said looking at Emily confused.

She thought about how they were going to get married, runaway after all this revenge stuff. How all he wanted was for her to leave this suicide mission and be with him. Emily had let him down, she had disappointed him, and more importantly she left him. She couldn't go into those deep and dark places of anguish right now, she could only remain in the safe areas of anger

"He thought he was a fool. One of the last things he said to me was that he was a fool for ever thinking I'd give up the game of revenge for him."

"He didn't mean it—"

"—Well that's something we'll never know, isn't it?"

"He'd want you to be happy. He want you to keep living and embrace life. You know that Em's, don't do?"

But she didn't know that at all. She was staring Nolan now without really seeing him, imagining herself departing from the earth like an arrow. How could she make it up to Aiden? He must have been so scared in his last moments seeing the eyes of that evil bitch Victoria. He couldn't have embraced an end like that. To not have chosen your own fate was cruel.

His eyes were closed tightly, his swollen lips clamped shut, the spine had a curvature in it, like a baby huddled on the floor, with limbs drawn in so much he looked impossibly small, constrained even. That's not the look of a body that embraces death.

She blinks back at Nolan, robotically, accepting his comfort artificially, biding her time until he finally leaves and shuts the door.

Slowly she rises from the bed like a child, reaching under her bed for the box.

She remembers what Aiden told her the night they finally talked; how once upon a time when he was a little boy he knew the day would come where he could laugh about all those moments you couldn't capture with a picture, the moments that truly hurt. Emily never admitted it to him then, but she too used to tell herself as child that one day she could go home and pretend all the things that were done to her father never happened. She could laugh and toss her hair and engage some handsome man in all the embarrassments seen and endured, like they were just some stories. The tragedies that happened to all those people on the flight 197 wouldn't be hers. She could be normal, become somebodies wife, call her friends up from time to time and talk senseless stuff. This is what she believed. She had never planned on being someone different. But who really does anyways?

"_You never imagine that you'll be the one that they'd all duck their eyes at and whisper about as tragic for having suffered such a loss like that,"_ Aiden's voice echoes.

She remembers clearly, Aiden saying this recalling the moment after finding his father dead from suicide. She felt a special kinship with him in that moment. She knew he understood something tragic, something that has the power to shape you, following you through life.

She doesn't know how she made out of the house without alerting Nolan. She doesn't know how she came to be in standing in the doorway of her little sisters room. But here she was, walking like a ghost, like a phantom one does not see coming…

But she knows what she wants. She wants Victoria Grayson to feel something, and the price that comes with a decision like this is overwhelmingly liberating. She will have forever lost her humanity in this act, but Emily does not care any longer.

Daniel was dead and his child by Margo too. Victoria probably thought she could be comfortable with Charlotte's free spirited ways, making decisions about children and marriage while such things were still her decision to make. After all you only live once and grandchildren may come some day. But imagine if that was all taken away, and there wasn't any decision to make from a bed already made…

Slowly Emily lowers the pillow clinched in her sweaty hands over her sleeping baby sister Charlotte, imaging with strange satisfaction how one day everyone will duck their eyes and whisper about Victoria having suffered a tragic loss like this…

"You've made your bed Victoria now sleep in it."


	3. October 18, 2014-Morning

Charlotte had this boyfriend once, who at first she didn't like very much. Well maybe it was more that she didn't take him very seriously when she should have. Like she never thought about him like he was hot, or that she'd even want to be with him long term. He was just an experiment, someone to make her feel all…special? Unique? Maybe like the only girl in the world? She didn't really know. All she knew was that he had been persistent, always hanging around, showing up at her family estate. And then gradually, she started to feel some sort of way when he was there. Maybe better? Or content? Truly safe? It caught her off guard. It wasn't love the way she had imagined it.

It felt weird if she didn't know what he was up to and she liked knowing that he was going to be there. He was warm, always staying the night, and arms wrapped around tight. That's all it took to make her fall asleep. It didn't take much to make her fall in love.

He acted like she was teaching him about everything; like the difference between black tie and white tie or how to order car service at the drop of a hat. But he taught her so much more, like how to pour drinks out at the bar and how to sail a boat. She hadn't even known how to tell which way was North and South, or East and West before he had shown her.

She wanted that chance. That chance to show someone everything and be shown everything in return. It opened her eyes to different ways of being and it was all so good until it wasn't anymore. He had changed his mind about her and it was fast. It was also fast the time it took before nothing could be changed about him anymore. He would be eighteen forever and she was just so exhausted now. She was so exhausted from thinking about it all anymore.

Declan.

So she rolled over and was met with something else to think about; his bare body rising from the bed walking away with an air of manly confidence. It was time to end this party.

The moment he closed the bathroom door, the guilt washed over her and she made a dash from the bed grabbing her clothing as quickly as she could. All that had happened was still a blur and truth be told just a little too crazy from all that alcohol and pills she consumed at the party before. And the combination wasn't even the worst of it…

Sighing heavily, her perfectly manicured hands felt through the room's darkness that familiar touch of her favourite bejeweled clutch. Snapping it open she squinted checking for her credit cards and makeup compacts. Was it sad to admit that both these things were the most important possessions in her everyday life now? But she had kicked that clutch on the floor only a couple of hours earlier when they had thrashed around on his bed like ravenous animals, high on the thrill of sex in subterfuge.

Once she had heard the toilet flush and the sink faucet running, it was time to pick up the pace. She tiptoed down the hall of his apartment, quickly glancing at his address on a piece of mail lying on a table by his door. She didn't know why she did this. She'd never come back here again. She didn't belong here. She didn't belong anywhere.

"…_home is home."_

_His _familiar voice called to her.

And she accepted it, begrudgingly so, but nonetheless because she accepted everything he had ever said to her.

Daniel.

She thought she saw him places, like right now while she was walking down the corridor. She thought she saw him standing there, holding out his hand, waiting to escort her. But the fluorescent lights of the apartment buildings second floor alerted her to the reality that she was by herself. This was her walk of shame, and hers alone. Quietly, she went on, light like a feather, slipping her pumps one once reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped out into the night.

She used her phone to get an Uber. Looking in up at the windows above, watching while he stood wrapped in a towel in front of his mirror after their brief sexual encounter. He was lean, tall, with chestnut skin, and brown hair…he almost sort of looked like_ him_. Her mind wouldn't let her think such thoughts before, but the reality was hard to ignore and what did this say about her? That she would go for someone who looked like him?

By the time he noticed she was gone he was already too late. Charlotte thought perhaps this evening will stay with him for a long time; the way he ran out onto his balcony only to get a glimpse of her olive colour calves swinging into the Uber. People coming and going so quick just like that. He'd have to learn this some time.

He called out to her from the balcony, his voice full of confusion. She was happy the tinted windows were rolled up so she could shut out his voice. He got her name wrong anyways. Well, she gave him the wrong name on purpose and she didn't have his number. She didn't want his number.

She did however begin to cry.

Tears rolled down her cheeks and the stream caught the light of oncoming cars. Those old vain thoughts that reminded her of the girl she used to be found strange solace in the fact that her new mascara survived the downpour, but even that was interrupted by the sound of the driver shifting uneasily in his seat. He'd seen the tears in his rearview mirror and she could feel his uneasiness with every squeak the leather beneath him produced.

What did he want from her? What was she supposed to do? Hide her tears to make him feel better? What to say? Could she even say what she was really thinking? Everybody else had no problem telling her what they felt.

"…_that's the thing with you Charlotte. There's always something."_

"_What?!"_

"_Today it was your mom. Yesterday it was Daniel. Tomorrow it will be the subway."_

"_I don't take the subway."_

"_Jesus Charlotte! You know what I mean. It's always about you. When's it gonna be about me for once. You haven't even congratulated me—"_

"—_Congratulations on getting into Cornell. I am very happy for you. I am sure your dad isn't as usual but I promise I will try to do better…"_

" _Really? You had to go there Charlotte?! I can't believe you."_

"_Please, Adam—"_

"—_All I wanted to do was love you, Charlotte. I could be making loads of money someday and you could have the life! But you are just so selfish and stubborn. And all you do is fight me every step of the way. I can't fight anymore. You are just a fucking bitch!"_

"_Oh yeah? What are you but a guy whose dad bought him his way into a top university? You want a congrats? Give me your phone, and I'll tell you're dad well done on the bribery—"_

"—_And all call you're dad from his jail cell and tell him congrats on having nothing to do with raising such a slut! That's all on your fake dad and stupid loser mom. You're a waste! I wasted a lot of time on you! So if you'll excuse me I have a lot of work to do. Unlike you, I actually have a future to live and don't want to waste time living in the past."_

Oh, Adam.

Good old Adam. He was her first boyfriend. What a whirlwind that was. All he did was make her feel guilty by turning the tables. For so long, she chased after his approval, relished in his attention, kept up the façade of happiness for one more fix. Those prescription pills from his father's medical pad didn't come cheap. And what a waste of time it had been.

She remembers how they drove around in his father's car; music blasting so loud her eardrums could've burst. It was after Declan died, and for some reason she actually believed Adam might see her a human being or a friend the second go around and not a possession to be obtained. She didn't even really like him much but she needed company and those lyrics, those lyrics made her want to sing her heart out.

"_This is a happy house, we are happy here, in a happy house. Oh this is fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun…"_

Neither of them had ever been happy. Maybe that's why they stuck together so long. They had spent so much time trying to convince one another they were having a good time. What's in a good time if you could only have it with medication and alcohol? What a miserable existence for two miserable kids.

"_Don't blame it on me cause you wanted to have fun."_

And she couldn't blame it on Adam. She wanted to have fun and for most part she did. They had had a good time even through all the bullshit and escapism from their home lives. So these tears weren't for him. Who were they for then?

"…_home is home…"_

"Daniel?" she whispered to herself, but no, it wasn't his voice this this time.

_"One day I am going to just get on a bus and get as far away from you and mom as possible! I will be a different from both of you!"_

"_Hey! I am you're father and you might not want to hear this Charlotte, but you are like your mother and me. You are going to find this out. One day I promise you will find just how much—"_

"—_You're not even my real dad! I hate you so much, Conrad. I wish you would die. I wish mom would die too."_

_"There you go", Conrad whispered sternly, "You just found out."_

Charlotte was getting herself so upset now, she could not breathe and her head was going all dizzy. She saw the headlights of the Uber shinning on the trees as it approached her family estate, the gates completely shut.

"I'm good here," she said handing the Uber driver some money and ignoring his calls of concern that someone ought to help her inside.

She climbed that gate and had done so many times before in more messy and wasted states. Taking off her heels, she waited till the driver drove away before chucking them over the other side and climbing on over after them, hoisting her body up and preparing for her flat landing. She had done gymnastics before as a child so she knew a skilled landing. Now, for the long walk up the hill as she ascended towards the family house. Her toes squished with the prickly grass every step of the way. It was a sensational and familiar feeling...

"_You know? Daniel says, as they ascend up towards the house during one of their late night walks._

"_What?" Charlotte said looking down at her bare feet squishing the grass as the two siblings both strolled._

"_You're a very beautiful girl Charlotte. You're young now; you're having your fun. I get it. I was the same. I did even worse shit than you."_

"_Like killed a girl?" Charlotte is all snippy._

"_Yes, like killed a girl," he said gravely._

"_It was an accident," she says immediately feeling guilty._

"_Doesn't matter," he took her statement very well and continued on. "I used to think I was so much better than mom and dad when I found out the truth about flight 197. I was sanctimonious even, but killing it is killing no matter how we all try to spin it. I tore someone's family apart what difference does it make that it wasn't millions."_

"_It's not the same! You're not them!"_

_"Mental gymnastics," he said flatly._

_"It isn't the same though! It was an accident and you were messed up then."_

"_I'm trying to say something to you Charlotte and I need you to listen, like really listen instead of getting all angry and emotional."_

"_Okay, fine."_

"_You are a beautiful girl but it's up to you to be more than that. If you ever want to do something about your life, you have got to be more than that. You just have to."_

This was the last true conversation they had ever had. Now it all made sense why she had been crying.

Finally, Charlotte made it home and safe inside. She managed to creep up the stairs and scale along quietly to her bedroom, swiftly opening the door and closing it shut. She was no longer crying, in fact there was urgency inside of her to do something. It could not wait.

Ducking under her bed, Charlotte pulled out a box labeled 'Daniel's Things'. Opening it she searched through frantically until she found the letter she had been looking for. She had found it in Conrad's office, crumbled from his anger, she decided to keep it for herself because surely he would not miss it. It had been the first thing she had ever read which contained such conviction, it spurred a feeling of remembering, the first feeling she ever had of pride:

**_Dear Dad, _**

**_My whole life, I've been told I was destined for greatness based solely on the virtue of my name. I was taught sacrifice was for the foolish. Survival was all that mattered. But now I find myself at a crossroads, and I must decide what I believe to be true. There is no such thing as destiny. Legacies must be earned by the choices we make. I now know that we write our own endings, and we can either choose to hide as villains or live as heroes._**

**_~Daniel_**

* * *

She had never told Daniel how proud she was of him, for saying everything she had ever wanted to say to their parents. She read his words whenever she felt she was losing herself in destruction because somehow they told her who she had been before all of this, all this tragedy and insanity that was her life now. If she had ever lost her way, Daniel was the one who had always kept her grounded in life and in death. He always reminded her of the person she once was and who she could be.

It was up to her to be more than the destruction and toxicity. Right now she wasn't cutting it, but she was home and maybe in the morning things could be different.

It could've been peaceful then. The night could have ended with her wistfully plopping down onto her bed, ready to go to sleep still in her party clothes clutching that letter, ready to dream of Daniel and everything she could do to honour him. The prodigal sister returned.

"…_home is home…"_

And it would have been just that sort of night, if when her hand did slide under her pillow; she did not feel another piece of paper. And when she slide it forward into sight and took it in her hand, she might have only thought it strange and have shut her eyes ready to sleep and forget about it tomorrow. But it was the odd title scrolled across the front of this letter, which curiously caught her eye, _'Ode to Charlotte'_.

But then she opened it and what she read caused her to give out the most blood-curdling scream, sure to wake the whole house. She didn't care, her body so overtaking with fear, all Charlotte could do was fall to ground in a crash, shaking and crying out for her mother. What she had read scared her so deeply and would likely scar her for life.

She should have stayed out. She should have never come home this morning or at all.


End file.
